To illustrate how theoretical studies should blend with empirical research, this article describes how scholars changed the ways they thought about schools and poverty. It begins with a historical review of the perspective of educational theorists and public policy prior to the 1970s. Taking a Marxist perspective, Bowles and Gintis (1976) published an influential theoretical treatise arguing that schools in a capitalist society preserved inequality. Almost immediately, Willis (1977) published his ethnographic study of working class youth, Learning to Labor, showing that working class youth actively resisted teachers' efforts to help them succeed. This article explores the effects this ethnographic study had on subsequent theoretical writing and addresses the manner in which theory and qualitative research augment each other.